Jagriti Yatris, who are on a tour across the nation, are all smiles as they pose for a picture outside the Pendurti railway station in Visakhapatnam on Friday. | Photo Credit: BY ARRANGEMENT

Jagriti Yatris visit centralised kitchen of Akshaya Patra in Visakhapatnam

by · The Hindu

As many as 525 young aspiring entrepreneurs of Jagritiyatra arrived by train at Pendurti railway station here on Friday as part of their nation-wide industrial study tour.

Jagritiyatra, an NGO, inspires and enables youth from small towns and villages of India to ‘build India through enterprise’. This is their flagship programme which involves a 15-day and 8,000 kms national journey taking selected entrepreneurial youth to meet the role model social and business entrepreneurs who are developing unique solutions to India’s developmental challenges.

Jagritiyatra attracts 17,000 registrations every year of which 500 of the best are selected for the journey. Since the first yatra in 2008, over 300 new enterprises have been set up within the Yatra fraternity and many more are being developed. This year they have selected 12 locations to meet with and learn from exceptional change-makers who are transforming India such as the Akshaya Patra Foundation (Visakhapatnam), Aravind Eye care (Madurai), Narayana Murthy (Infosys), Royal Enfield (Chennai) , SELCO (Hubli-Dharwad), Shar Sriharikota and others. This unique Indian experiment is now being replicated in the USA and France, according to a statement issued by the Akshaya Patra.

In Visakhapatnam, the yatris visited Akshaya Patra Kitchen, which is running the world’s largest school meal programme. Each school day, more than a million children in 23,000 schools across 14 Indian States eagerly await the vehicle that brings their mid-day meal. They are feeding around 23 lakh children from 75 kitchens every day across 14 different States of India. In Gambhiram their ISO certified centralised semi-automated kitchen prepares and distributes food to 20,000 beneficiaries daily.

The yatris said that they had learnt a lot on the management of community kitchen and said they were inspired by the work being done by Akshaya Patra as part of the midday meal programme.

President of Akshaya Patra Foundation(APF), Vizag, Niskinchana Bhaktha Dasa, explained about the 24-year journey of APF. The yatris interacted with U. Viswas, Operations Head, APF, Bengaluru, who answered their queries after the visit to the centralised kitchen.

Ambarisha Dasa, GM, APF, Vizag, and Dhalveer Singh, CEO, Jagrithi Yatra Foundation, Mumbai were present.

Published - November 22, 2024 11:16 pm IST